daniel davis and philip greenwald got the 1864 battle of cold harbor that took place during the civil war. this program is next on booktv. >> there is a sense of doom, cold harbor. in the battle for the first time with my dad making our way along the park road thrown around to federate entrenchments that there was a certain sense of foreboding. it still persists today 150 years later we see the images after the war for the battlefield on the hurricane

that the heavens and we read the words such as thomas hyde in the army of the potomac. it's very interesting to revisit the battlefield of the war that i never heard anybody that was engaged to express an interest. it is the best of peoples of earth and traversing covered ways they have yielded the sun but it remains in american history. cold harbor would also become the final battle in the overlaying campaign and the fighting that took place in the spring of 1864 between the u.s. is s. grant and robert e. lee. beginning in the wilderness the fighting would move onto the spotsylvania courthouse and into the north anna river and finally, the area northeast of richmond between the rivers. stymied on may 26 the ulysses s. grant with swing to the southeast. robert e. lee look and help her and they would be fighting at a

place. the armies would face each other across the creek at the bethesda church. finally, through fighting on the outskirts of the army between the calvary both armies would turn their attention towards the crossroads of cold harbor. through may 31 and june 1 both sides will rush to get to this vital crossroads. however there is nothing impressive about cold harbor itself. one union officers said sarcastically that but with some seriousness of all of the ways i've seen the first site was the most dreary. a rigid house and open claim in the fine white dust on the sides and in the distance. it was the sahara intensified and it was called the cool arbor. but strategically it was very

important. for one road led to the white house landing to the east. the union army's main supply and the other to the west ran towards the confederate capital of richmond. it's why it encapsulates the offense and defense of characteristics of this campaign and we begin to see the emergence of the fortification and the trench warfare by the confederate army of northern virginia. the trench warfare will begin at spotsylvania. in the past the confederates have been able to take advantage of the natural defensive terrain at manassas we would utilize the deep cut into the sunken road which would become at antietam and finally in the stonewall at the height of fredericksburg. but in spotsylvania is caught

out in the open. he is outnumbered and he must improvise. so he sets the work building massive field fortifications. the forerunners of the entrenchment entrenchment that we could see later would see later on in europe and in world war i. the plan is very simple. the execution is very simple. the confederates stand shoulder to shoulder in one line phasing in a certain direction. and they begin to dig throwing up the earth in front of them. all of the trees in the area chalked up to bring forward to reinforce the earth in the embankment. about 6 inches above the end being kind is placed in the header block to protect the soldier when they are standing on the earthwork so they can fire up between the earth and butthead blog as a relative ease and protection. out in front of the main lines ten to 15 yards chop down trees, branches sharpened pointing towards the enemy with further

protection. a ten to 15 feet along the line the federal state more trenches to protect from the fire coming in from the sides and as impressive as they are to the confederates, they are even more impressive to the union soldiers. the union soldiers had not yet encountered anything like this during the warfare in virginia so they then provide, so too must the federal's. it comes from the union officer from new york. often recognizes the attacking head-on in the traditional tactics for the day would be literally suicidal. so she decides on a daring plan. he decides rather than sending them across the open field to fire at the confederates and then close on the confederate lines he decides he's going to

send them across the field in a very tight and compact formation. they will breach the line without stopping the fire and innocence is a charge and it works at spotsylvania and executes but the federals are federal's are unable to exploit the breakthrough and he's driven back. the tactic gives grant hope. instead of using the name he used he decides to use 20,000 in that they pushed for the confederate through the confederate lines but again the attack is not supported and the federal's are driven back. that's a salt becomes the sort of unofficial tactic in the attacking the offensive tactics during the campaign for the army of the potomac. and on june 1 when the first

takes place upton is on the field and he had had time to refine the tactic that he implemented at spotsylvania and he did do decides to form them into two lines that will hit the confederate position and that's the first line is successful, the second line will move up and exploit the bridge in the first line is stymied in front of the confederate group works they will push one at a time to the gap in order to allow the federal's to move up and over the confederate works. so june 1.

they tied to the failure of the assault takes place on june june 301864. grand plan for the assault to take place at 4:30 that morning and a four-time 230 that morning of june 31864 the union lines would move forward in an effort to break the line and open the way to the confederate capital of richmond. as soon as the skirmishes were engaged the artillery opened against the rebel works. in the thunders of the artillery they pressed rapidly against the space against the lines of works and the union forces thrown against more simultaneous but they were too strong and the rebel forces to numerous. the line could be taken and thus the grand a salt in which general grand posted across

infield. by the early afternoon the federal's decided to suspend all offensive operations but it is tied to the man who ordered the attack. and unfortunately for us today through this lens at cold harbor we tend to view grant. cold harbor cast a long shadow over ulysses s. grant. perhaps what makes the day all the more devastating is there was so much hope in the union high command for success for the assault. even today we can approach the situations with utmost optimism to see them terribly -- to. it was based upon.

three of it was inconclusive and that federals scored resounding victories at the creek and the bethesda church. the initial success of the june 1 a salt added to grant's optimism. and that optimism, the initial success on june 1 is what led grant to launch the assault two days later. after the war grant was writing his memoirs and i always regretted regretted the last us all that cold harbor was ever made. along with the estimates on

june 3 they continue to passed over for grant. they placed the number of the casualties had suffered on june 3 suffered around 2,002 they 7,000 men fell in the first ten to 20 minutes of fighting. in actuality they suffered around 4,000 casualties on june june 3. it's lower than the famous assaults of the war. they lost about 8,000 soldiers in front of the stonewall at fredericksburg. robert e. lee and john bell was around 6,000 respectively during the charge of gettysburg.

it was a mistake and that federals were exhausted and the confederates were well entrenched. grand as i mentioned has come to be viewed through the lens of cold harbor and why are we view him through that lens we forget about the triumphs of henry and fort donaldson they kicked open the confederacy western door in northwestern tennessee. also gone is the execution of the brilliant strategy during the vicksburg campaign and the defense of chattanooga in the fall of 1863. viewing grant through the entire spectrum not just during a few hours on june 301864 door at the same time should we put grant him a pedestal but see him as a man the human flesh and blood with walls to the cove. he possessed an uncommon

tenacity to see a task to the end. for him, cold harbor may have been a disappointment for a few hours and perhaps a few days. he saw it as a stepping stone to the end of the war in virginia. very soon he would turn his sights toward the southwest. in the open field hewitt to these could decide to attack the logistics and cold harbor was a tactical victory despite the tremendous pounding that we and the army sustained over the course of may and into the first week of june of 1864. he had been able to hold his army together. this is a tribute to the leadership and the endurance of the men he led and the hammering that grant administered was nothing like what they had ever seen before. but the army of northern virginia had been worn down and

their ability has been reduced. the capability had been reduced to withstand a prolonged attack on their logistics which would be coming within the next two weeks after the fighting ended at harbor. >> but still into what is the battle. we have one of those great quotes now. there's one by forest porter is a lieutenant colonel and by general ulysses s. grant. on the night of june 2 he remembers walking through the lines and says as i came near one of the regiments they were making preparations for the next morning and i noticed that many have taken off their coats and seemed to be engaged in selling up but upon close examination it was found that they were writing

their names and addresses on slips of paper and pinning them on the back of their coats so that the bodies might be recognized on the field of battle. this fact of pinning their names and jackets were not just exclusive to the harbor, but it's kind of come to add to their luster that has been pretended every time. on june 31864 for, the one simple fact could be ignored that hell would break loose and that was the battle of cold harbor. certainly on the night of june 2 and june 31 soldier remembered going to take a few minutes of sleep but hearing the tip all night of confederate soldiers cutting down trees, some of the comrades apparently agreed to veto the background and the striking of wood. this federal soldier then couldn't help but think that the rebels were preparing to cut

down. that was the battle of the soldier. the next day the assaults rolled forward like the tide on the shores of the beach. they did make some headway against the confederate lines. for once they delivered a simultaneous assaults and has been known to be now or never. the assault like this have proven characteristics and had begun on the enron of fredericksburg over 70 miles away with 30 days of hard fighting on cold harbor. but this was the the battle of cold harbor. today when one visits the battlefield, you can walk between the lines. sometimes you can remove your self to be caught among the trees and provide an opportunity to stretch the legs and permit your imagination. imagine the coats from the hot weather, the smell of gunpowder, spelling them out or if you ever smelled a rotten egg it is

pretty similar. mixed with the smell of the flash maybe mentioning the name of food and get the missing sentence might be a bit much for the senses but the yells and screaming and the sound of bees which in fact the thickening sounds when it penetrating across the field. this is the difference 150 years ago this year between what the men in blue experience did what you can experience yourself and then imagine walking with the intensity they had to facing the storm akin to the rainstorm that instead of reimagining the projectiles in the injury. that was the battle of cold harbor. some of them made the walk completely succeeded in breaking those initial confederate defenses. but behind the confederate defenses, there was every state represented in the confederacy. even states that have not succeeded had sent troops. so the army pushed back.

some of them were under a famous fighting in the valley at breckenridge and the forces pushed some of the union soldiers back and in the smoking confusion, there was thousands of men from maryland, florida, new york, pennsylvania. one officer said simply that it was the enemy and that we had to charge. they wouldn't be pushed back out of the breach as one did remember though after the confederate attack they might have been green soldiers that they taught us when to run and run we did, i assure you. until june 3 ave. and flow along the confederate lines one soldier also remembers bullets coming along the fields. they didn't whistle like so many other battles. it came like a rush of lightning and tore through. one of the units was in

massachusetts a veteran unit that had been navigated at the very streets of fredericksburg virginia in 1862. the brigade commander was killed in the assault and survived numerous assaults including the one at the height. he was the idol of his men and the adoration of the superiors according to the second source staff officer. that staffer could have been talking about most men that day. the ones that. on the storm and the shower of bullets. the confederate artillery is a veteran of many of robert e. lee's campaigns in the east side on june 3 at the sites were simply sickening along cold harbor. the heat's dead were so ghastly and struggle over the field. a north carolina soldier said that almost paved the ground and the estimated that it covered more than 5 acres of ground as sickly as they could be laid

out. that was the battle of cold harbor. another confederate wrote i've often heard about them being deep in richmond that i that i didn't be needed until last week when i saw with my own eyes. june 30 didn't stop the horror. the wounded soldiers across no man's land and pleaded for mercy and water or a simple end to the agony of laying out in the virginia summer in no man's land. grant and his adversary tangled over the terms of the truce on june 7 barely a man was still alive when the commanders tired of the term. in those days the men on both sides felt as they burrowed into the east's way of whether it was a soldier stretching as he woke up in the morning or try to get a look at the enemy was greeted with a small crack of the sniper's rifle and death came

intermittently and without warning. 15,000 men were added to the casualty role in the battle of cold harbor. 15,000 more lives were shattered into thousands of families wrecked. they snuck out before they could come to distance. also in the fall of 64 or as they fell in 1864 some soldiers remarked that there were skeletal remains that were poking out of the ground seemingly reaching for the next to join them and these were the men that filtering the peninsula campaign previous. one soldier simply put we had all ceased any pleasure in the battle. as a commander whose men fought at gettysburg and out west wrote about the battle of cold harbor that he had seen the carnage in front of fredericksburg and he fought through but i have seen nothing to this referencing

court-ordered. that was cold harbor. one of the units or one of the courses of robert e. lee's army was the second quarter. they had been stonewalled shacks and's former command and they had been wrecked. one of them were captured in spotsylvania. throughout the campaign through the 64 there were 18,119 men that were present on may 5 when the campaign started. a little over a year later i'm a little less than a year later on april 9, 1865, 5,036 men surrendered as a part of the famous unit. basically being a historian and my math isn't always that great but that is 18,883 casualties. if you put it down it is simply 41 men everyday through the overlaying campaign into 65 that would die in the service of the second core. so with that as they pulled into

the second core of a 31 of the 40 men that had served as brigade commanders in the army on may 5 by the third at the assault was no longer with the army. 35,000 of the approximately 70,000 soldiers have been killed or wounded in 30 days. "herbert was the head of something new. we have said if they reached the river it was just a matter of time. after cold harbor he does reach the river and he does reach petersburg. and as he said it is just a matter of time. it's less than a year later april 1965 there would be a little less.

there were no studies of the cold harbor and to create historians. there is nothing to claim that or where no pun intended emerging onto the battlefield. we wanted something where you could experience and take a driving tour and walk on the sites. the hope is to get you onto the battlefield. it's supposed to get you interested in what they did and with a bb gun and what they fought for and what ultimately over 620,000 of them died for. we can never bring back the same snow or the way of thinking that what we can do is give you onto the battlefield with the same visuals. sometimes you may have to block out some of the modern impediments that grace the area. but the attacks of june 3 are

preserved and we would like you to go out and experience with the strike was on the american civil war. ' [applause] >> any questions? >> [inaudible] >> i have a question. my great-grandfather was in the infantry, and i'm wondering what if any role in north carolina would have played at the battle of battle of cold harbor that he may have some action. >> the ninth corps assaults is

to try to figure out where they came through. there are private farm fields but you can generally get to the area they came across were defended the line. we do didn't try to locate the best of the knowledge where the division would have been located along the line. >> i can't imagine representing the amount of acres covered by the trenches. >> it is at least 3 miles by june 3 i think it is at least

3 miles from the southern end of the confederate line to the northern. if you trace and look at the map, start just above the modern 360 just north of 360 is traces all the way down below where the visitor center is. you all is to connect the wilderness to the trenches that they dug through. in the first year or two in the war is considered to dig up the trench. by 64 they remark if you give them an hour they will find a way to dig a trench and give them half of the day they will have the laws on top and everything. it might not be honorable that it is going to matter.

so changing warfare. >> it is located where in virginia? >> it is in virginia right around 295. so it is right off of 360. it is actually ministered by the richmond national battlefield park which is headquartered. >> [inaudible] >> the name cold harbor, the term cold harbor means a tavern or waystation not so much a place where ships come in. to make it even more confusing, they have a new cold harbor and old cold harbor. but basically it is just a collection of buildings strategically placed between where grant was and needed to go.

>> [inaudible] >> yes, sir. you can drive through because some of them in the bethesda charts are right on 360. we don't want any more casualties at the battle of bethesda. some of it has been turned. places like the church at the dates all the way back to the 1760s i want to say. one of them is the shelton house and in more peaceful times patrick henry married sarah shelton in the parlor and so it has been turned over in 1997, but it took a few years to get a house in shape but yes is

walking towards stuff. so you can drive it or if you want to get out and walk but it can get you either way. he mac. >> thank you very much for coming. [applause] former speechwriter and advisor for president clinton talks talks with the history of chinese americans and the experiences of his own family members in the united states. he spoke of the world at the world affa